The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (22 page)

And I'm tired because I miss my best friend. Not Ashley and not Nolan, but my
mom.
I miss watching movies together and eating pizza together and the way she makes fun of me. I miss taking Oscar on long walks together, and I miss her scolding me when she catches me raiding her closet for the zillionth time. We barely even talk anymore. We just sit in the house in silence. I don't think she even notices the way I stare at her. It feels like she hardly notices me at all.

And I'm too tired to explain any of this to Nolan. In fact,
suddenly his involvement in all of this feels all wrong, as mysterious and illogical as the rest of it.

“What do you care, anyway?” I say suddenly. “You didn't even know me three months ago. You can't possibly be that concerned about the fate of a girl you barely even know.”

“I don't barely know you—” he begins, but I cut him off.

“Haven't you already gotten everything you need?”

“What do you mean?”

The stupid, stubborn lump in my throat has turned into stupid, stubborn tears shaking in the corners of my eyes. “For your extra-credit project! I would hate to be the reason your perfect GPA didn't hold up.” My voice sounds different from how it usually sounds.

Further proof that I can't be a luiseach. They're full of light—isn't that what Nolan said? I have literally never felt so dark.

“I told you, I don't care about that—”

“So you were just in it for your grandfather? Well, now you have your proof, so you don't need me anymore.”

“Proof?” Nolan echoes.

“The proof your grandfather spent his life searching for? You can show it to your dad, your mom, your grandmother, the whole world—show them that your grandfather wasn't just some crazy old man like they all thought.” I don't think I've ever said anything so mean in my entire life.

Nolan responds, his voice calm and even. Nothing like mine. “Look, Sunshine, I'm not going to lie to you. It means a lot to me to know that my grandfather was right, that even now, months after his death, his research helped us.” He locks his eyes with mine. I blink, and a few tears fall out of my eyes and onto my cheeks, shockingly cold. Nolan and I are nowhere near touching, but that wrong-end-of-the-magnet feeling starts to take
hold. I lean back, pressing myself against the door behind me, trying to increase the distance between us.

“And yes,” he continues, “there's a part of me that wants to show everything we've found to every single person who ever dismissed my grandfather as a nutty old man. I mean, you and I sat across a desk from a real, live ghost!”

Another time, another place, I'd make fun of him for referring to a ghost as
live.
But now I just mutter, “Glad it was so exciting for you.”

Nolan continues as though I haven't said a thing. “And maybe my grandfather is the reason I got involved in all this to begin with—” His hair falls across his amber eyes, but for once he doesn't brush it away. “But do you really think he's the reason I'm still here?”

“I don't know why you're here,” I say hoarsely. “But I think it's time for you to leave.”

“What are you talking about? I'm trying to help you. Like I said, I'll do more research—”

“Where has your research gotten us? Chasing phantom professors and dead ends! I don't have
time
for dead ends. My mother could be in serious danger.” Butterflies tap dance across my belly.

“I know that—”

“And you think you can help us by reading some more old books?” My mouth has a mind of its own, and I feel powerless to stop it from saying these mean things. “I don't need your help,” I lie. For someone who never so much as fibbed about finishing her vegetables a few months ago, I'm getting pretty good at lying. “I'm not some helpless
damsel in distress
who needs a boy to help her.”

“I never thought you were.”

“Then I'll ask you again, what do you care, anyway?” I press my chin into my shoulder, feeling the leather of Nolan's jacket pressing back.

“I care about
you!
I don't want anything to happen to you.” Nolan's words hang thickly in the air between us. Softly, he adds, “Or to your mom. Look, I know you're feeling threatened right now. I understand that you feel like you have to—I don't know, lash out, pick a fight with me or something.”

“Don't tell me how I feel.”

“Okay, I won't.”

“Like I said, I think it's time for you to leave.” I slip off his jacket and hold it out for him to take, careful not to let his hands brush against mine when he finally does.

“I'll be gone a few days,” he says, shrugging the jacket on.

“What?” I answer, beginning to shiver. Despite the fact that I'm practically forcing him to go, the prospect of his prolonged absence sends another pack of butterflies flying through my stomach. I guess this is what people mean when they talk about being on an emotional roller coaster.

“My parents and I are going to visit my grandmother. I know she's just a couple of towns away, but we always stay with her for the holidays.”

“The holidays?” I echo dumbly.

“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”

“Oh,” I answer blankly. Then I get out of the car and slam the door shut behind me. I stand and watch him back out and drive away. Through the fog I can make out green and red lights someone tossed messily onto the lower branches of the tree in the yard of the house across from ours. It's an evergreen, but it doesn't look anything like a Christmas tree.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. School is out for winter break. People are headed home to their families' houses, gathering around pine trees, basting turkeys, wrapping presents.

I'd honestly forgotten.

Lex and Oscar run to greet me as I walk in the door. I fill their bowls with food, apologizing for the way I left them a few hours earlier. They rub against my legs gratefully, but their presence doesn't make the house feel any less empty.

For the first time in my whole life we don't have a Christmas tree. We didn't strap it to the top of our car and struggle to carry it through the front door and bicker over whether I was holding it straight while Mom crouched on the floor, trying to secure it in our rusty tree stand. We didn't stay up late drinking eggnog (a drink neither of us actually enjoy, but both of us still insist upon), while we decorated our too-tall tree with lights and silly ornaments I'd made in nursery school—a clay one in the shape of my handprint, a stick-figure Santa Claus made out of popsicle sticks.

I never actually believed in Santa Claus. When I was little Mom told me to write him a letter and tell him what I wanted, but somehow I always knew
she
was the one fulfilling my Christmas wishes. After all, I never asked Santa for a glass unicorn, but when I was five years old there was one waiting for me under the tree on Christmas morning, just as there would be every Christmas afterward.

Until now. There's no way my mother remembered to get me a new unicorn this year. A few months ago I thought about asking her for one of the UV lamps that combat seasonal affective
disorder. Now I don't think anything could brighten my mood. Not even actual sunshine.

I stomp through the house, up the stairs, and into my room. I sit on my bed, still wearing my boots, my hair still damp from the air outside and covered in Levis Hall dust. I feel the absence of the weight of Nolan's jacket on my shoulders. My steps have tracked mud through the house, but I don't think Mom will notice. Still, I know I'll retrace my steps with carpet cleaner before she gets home. I don't want her to get into trouble with our landlord. Though I wouldn't feel that bad since he's the one who rented us a haunted house.

I can't remember the last time I had an actual conversation with Ashley. It's been texts only over the past few months, as it became obvious that I was less interested in Cory Cooper than I was in ghosts—and as she became interested in nothing but Cory Cooper. We just kind of stopped calling each other. The last text I got from her said
Cory let me drive his car
. That was two days ago, and I haven't written back yet. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to react. I guess that's some kind of big step in their relationship. But I couldn't seem to make myself get excited about it, even for Ashley. I had more important things going on, things that Ashley couldn't possibly understand.

I wish I knew
who
it was in this house with us. Maybe if I knew the name of the little girl I heard begging for her life in the bathroom—if I knew her story—I'd be able to figure out why this was happening. Or maybe if I knew who she was begging, I'd understand just what kind of threat we're up against.

But I sent away the one person who wanted to help me find out.

I flop back against the bed, and (of course) instead of hitting the pillows like I intended, I thwack my head against the wall
behind me. Probably right on top of an enormous pink flower. “Still klutzy,” I say with a sigh. “I guess some things never change.” I just wish some of the
good
things hadn't changed.

Before he backed out of the driveway Nolan rolled his window down to say one last thing to me. “You believe in
ghosts,
Sunshine,” he said. “Why can't you believe in
this
—in what
you
are? In what you're capable of?”

“But that's just the thing,” I say out loud now, even though he's not around to hear me. “I haven't the slightest clue what I'm capable of.”

I'm Growing Concerned

I knew she'd be resistant—after a human childhood she couldn't immediately understand all of this—but I expected she'd have made more progress by now. She was so quick to recognize the foreign presence in her house, but in the months that have passed since I moved them to Ridgemont she's been fighting against the next logical conclusion.

She doesn't even recognize her instincts for what they are. She has been comforting the innocent spirit in the house, whether she understands it or not, in ways that a human never could.

But I need her strengths to lie not just in comfort but in the fight. My plan is destined for failure if she doesn't have the strength I need. And what will become of our kind then? Not just our kind—what will become of humans, without luiseach on Earth to protect them? Unless my theory proves correct . . .

The boy was not part of the plan. Such helpmates often don't materialize until much later in a luiseach's life. And the last thing I want is for her to get caught up in a distraction. I made express precautions against such things years ago. And my precautions do seem to be working. I see them in the way she reacts when he touches her. Her body stiffens and she moves away. She swallows hard, as though trying not to gag.

Still, their connection is strong. The measures I set in place don't seem to be keeping him away—or keeping her away from him. This was most definitely not part of the plan.

But perhaps the time has come to alter the plan.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

New Clues

The little girl in the tattered dress
is in my dreams again. This time she's crouched in the corner of the bathroom, crying quietly, water dripping from her hem onto the floor beneath her.
Plop, plop. Plop, plop.
I crawl across the tiles to get to her, but she's always just out of my reach, eluding my touch. The scent of mildew is heavy in the air, and she won't look at me, only at the tiles beneath her small bare feet.

“Why are you crying?” I whisper, but she doesn't answer. “Can I help you?” I ask, but there's no response. She just sits there, her tears falling on the floor so rapidly that once more it reminds me of that part of
Alice in Wonderland
when Alice nearly drowns in her own tears.

Is this the same girl who paced above Nolan and me, who got so excited that the lightbulb exploded above us? She must be. And she wants me to figure this out. At least Nolan thinks so.

So finally I ask, “Can you help me?” Abruptly her tears stop. She looks up, and I can see that her eyes are dark brown, nearly
black. She opens her mouth, but if any sound comes out, I can't hear it.

“What?” I ask her. “I'm sorry—I couldn't hear you.”

She opens her mouth again. There's the murmur of whispers, but I can't make out any words.

“What?” I ask again, and she whispers her answer, but I still can't hear it. “Please!” I say desperately. Now I'm near tears.

She whispers more, but I still can't make it out. The girl looks nearly as frustrated as I feel. I try again to get closer to her, to put my ear close to her lips, but she slips ever farther away, until I'm left alone in the bathroom, the water from her tears seeping into my pajamas.

I wake up with a gasp.

My pajamas are dotted with droplets of cold water. I roll over and see the blinking light of my alarm clock: 2:07 a.m. I press my eyes shut, but I know I'm not going back to sleep. Not for a while at least.

I get up. On my way to Mom's room I stop and peer into the bathroom. I can't believe I'm actually hoping to see a crying girl with a tattered dress crouched in the corner, just as she was in my dream. What kind of freak
hopes
to see a ghost?